After years of steady improvement and reasonable success, Eddie O'Sullivan's reign as Ireland coach came to a horrific end with a meltdown at the 2007 World Cup and an underwhelming display in the subsequent Six Nations.
Read more: Balls Remembers One Of The Most Harrowing Nights In Irish Rugby History
That Declan Kidney won the Grand Slam the following year with largely the same crop of players further diminished Eddie's standing in the eyes of the rugby public.
Eddie was bracingly honest in his contribution to Tom English's superb book 'No Borders: Playing Rugby For Ireland'. After reflecting on where things went wrong in the traumatic 2007-08 season, O'Sullivan flatly said, 'the perception of me in Ireland is bad. I know it is'.
We spoke to Tom English for the second episode of our books podcast. English interviewed 114 protagonists for the book but the interview with O'Sullivan left a vivid impression.
While the exquisitely painful manner of his exit will forever be a regret, the thing which bugs O'Sullivan the most these days is the popular notion that he is a malevolent character with a predilection for stabbing people in the back.
English tried to soothe O'Sullivan by arguing that this no longer holds but O'Sullivan wasn't having it.
I think he's troubled and a bit hurt at the perception - and this surprised me a little bit, that he was so strong on this. He thinks that the Irish rugby public think that he's this Machiavellian backstabber, a guy who stitched up Warren Gatland and then got rid of Declan Kidney in a cold blooded hit.
And I was saying 'I think that's maybe a bit of a caricature. I think maybe Ireland has moved on from that'.
And he said 'No, no, I think a lot of people do see me like that'. Like a kind of vicious character who goes around stitching up people. And he's definitely wounded by that.
Earlier today, it was confirmed that O'Sullivan's unhappy time in charge of Biarritz had come to an end.
Listen to the discussion below:
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